


The Black-Robe's Black Lightsaber

by Baozhale



Series: Lightsabers in Tortall [1]
Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:21:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24026557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baozhale/pseuds/Baozhale
Summary: It's Tortall, but lightsabers are a thing. Numair has one. He's never used it.
Series: Lightsabers in Tortall [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1735729
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The way I’m putting lightsabers into the Tortall universe is basically:  
> If you have the Gift, you can learn to make one. Whether or not you do is another question. (I feel like healers generally wouldn’t, but battle mages generally would. Other specialties might tend one way or the other, but not as strongly as the fact that with very few exceptions, healers Do Not and battle mages Do.)  
> Once a saber exists, anyone can use it and it’ll handle pretty much like a regular blade. It’s easier if it’s attuned to you (either because you made it or it was made for you), though.

Arram Draper had never particularly wanted to learn to make a lightsaber. He was working as a _healer_ , for the Gods’ sakes. But he was also one of the most powerfully Gifted students at the university, and when Ozorne practically dragged him into the room where students were learning the theory, he didn’t slip out. He didn’t need to actually _make_ the saber, he told himself. Maybe he could apply what he learned to some other area. (He would, but not until years later

\------------------------------------------------------------

When Ozorne became the heir, Arram admitted he’d need to put theory into practice. The crystal was easy to find: by and large, his instructors were only surprised it had taken him so long to ask for one. (Lindhall was the exception, a bit sad the healer had given in and decided to make a saber.) The weapon he would imitate as a template for the blade was easy too: Ozorne lent him the standard one for mages of the Carthaki royal court. He wasn’t a court mage yet, but Ozorne’s presumption that Arram _would_ be, and Arram’s lack of reason to argue, made the choice sensible.

But Carthaki court mages had quite a bit of leeway in regards to what hilt they would attach their blades to. Some chose simple, practical designs, generally indicating they knew how to _use_ their lightsabers. These warriors could fight with blade or Gift. Others took the smallest hilts they could hold and squeeze their crystals into, so they could carry their lightsabers, unignited, without it being noticed. Spies and those who felt they could get away with admitting to their discomfort with the blade did that. (Or maybe it was just spies, and discomfort provided plausible deniability to the spies? Arram wasn’t sure, and Ozorne wasn’t telling.) Yet others chose ornamental hilts, showing tastes, accomplishments, or wealth. These designs could be practical … or not. Varice managed to give the hilt of her court mages’ saber a feast theme, then duplicated a full set of kitchen knives as light sabers. “This way they’ll never go dull,” she told the boys.

After considering a crocodile theme (Enzei said no), a sunbird theme (Enzei threatened to eat him if he ever suggested it again), and an all-too-ironic healers theme (maybe for surgeon’s scapels, since Varice had given him the idea of using lightsabers for tools, not weapons – but then again, maybe not – the cauterization would be an issue), Arram finally settled on a fairly practical design with some shaping to make the cross guard resemble the wings of a hawk for his shapeshifting. He showed it to Varice, to Ozorne, and to his teachers, then put it away in his desk. He hid it beneath a fake bottom of the second drawer up. _Using_ it wasn’t part of his plan, and he certainly wasn’t going to bring it to his work healing.

\--------------------------------------

When Arram took the test to become a black robe mage (one of those tests you don’t pass or fail so much as survive or don’t – a bit like the Chamber of the Ordeal in Tortall, but more so), he brought his lightsaber with him, at his instructors’ insistence. It was permitted, and why give up a tool that might help him survive?

He never put his hand on the hilt.

\-----------------------------------------

When Ozorne was crowned, Arram moved into new rooms in the palace. His lightsaber moved with him: from the drawer of one desk to the drawer of another. He wore it on his hip at as few functions as he could get away with: the coronation, of course, at celebrations of the quarter and cross-quarter holidays, but otherwise he left it in the desk. It was in his desk when he was arrested, to the frustration of the guards who didn’t find it on his person.

\------------------------------------------

When Lindhall smuggled Arram Draper out of the magic-suppressing cells underneath the Carthaki palace, he stopped in his former students palace rooms first. Everyday desk, second drawer from the bottom – yes, it had a fake bottom, just like Arram had told him he’d made to hide his lightsaber at the university. It was homemade again, too. It was a bit funny how protective Arram was of the black-bladed lightsaber he’d never wanted and did his best _not_ to carry.

\----------------------------------------

When Numair Salmalin travelled with a Player’s troupe, he kept _his_ lightsaber hidden along with his Gift. Black lightsabers were rare, like black Gifts and auras alike.

But he did carry a lightsaber, made for him by one of the troupe’s illusionists. _Remember, it’s an honor,_ Numair had to tell himself when she offered. His distaste for lightsabers was about the healer he wasn’t anymore – couldn’t be anymore. Now, it would be suspicious to refuse. “Thank you,” Numair said, then tried not to show just how well he knew what he needed to do so the illusionist could attune a blade to (most of) him. For all he didn’t want this blade either, he was proud of keeping his Gift hidden from the illusionist while she attuned the blade to him. It was his first use of the theory that wasn’t _directly_ about making himself a lightsaber. Just someone else making him one. A silver blade, this time, with copper plating on parts of the hilt to make it resemble their colorful tents. _Did that mean his aura matched the second color of his Gift? Or would anyone get silver if they hid their Gift while another mage attuned a saber to them?_ There weren’t enough people with two-colored Gifts to test the first hypothesis, but if he were ever in a position to experiment, he might see about the second.

\----------------------------------------------

When Alanna found him, starving and freezing, Numair Salmalin did not reach for his lightsaber. Either of them. He stared at the purple blade of light pointed at his throat and wondered if he was about to die, but he didn’t reach for either blade.

\---------------------------------------------------

One reason (among many) that Numair Salmalin liked King Jonathan was that Jon never questioned his aversion to carrying his lightsaber (either one). Numair had no issues with other mages carrying _their_ sabers, or even with the reality that Alanna, despite being a healer, carried a lightsaber as a knight who was also a mage. That was enough for Jon, though he _did_ ask about the two different colors of Numair’s two sabers.

\-------------------------------------------------

Numair brought his lightsaber with him when he joined the diplomatic delegation to Carthak, almost (but not quite) as reluctantly as he went with the delegation at all. Emperor Ozorne had known him as a man who practically needed to be ordered to make or carry the saber of a court mage. Any advantage Numair could gain on the emperor he was certain meant to kill him was worth using, if he had to go back. (And he had to go back. Orders aside, he wasn’t going to send Daine there without him.)

He adapted the attunement meditation for lightsabers to the simulacrum he sent Lindhall, too. Hopefully, the simulacrum wouldn’t be needed, but the attunement would hopefully be enough to fool the emperor.

\--------------------------------------------------

Numair carried _both_ lightsabers in Carthak. Never openly, but always on his person. He still tried to punch Ozorne, not stab him with either lightsaber.


	2. Daine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snippets related to Numair's lightsabers and Daine.

Daine asked, once (OK, more than once), why Numair didn't carry a lightsaber. He said he'd studied and worked as a healer for a while, in Carthak. Even though he couldn't heal anymore, it still felt wrong. 

\-----------------------------------

"You're going to have to bring it to Carthak, won't you?" Daine asked.

"Them, actually. And yes, as much as I hate it, I'm bringing them." Numair said.

"Them?" Daine raised an eyebrow.

Numair opened the fake bottom of his travel chest, which still lay empty, and showed her. "Yes, them. I made the hawk one in Carthak. Ozorne knows I have it, because he practically made me make it. The blade is black. An illusionist made me the other, when I was a travelling Player. She didn't know I had the Gift, or my own lightsaber. It's silver."

"How'd she attune a lightsaber to you and _not_ know you're a mage?" Daine demanded.

"I hid it, even during the meditation. I was quite proud of that, magelet." Numair put the silver lightsaber back into the fake bottom, then looked at the black one. "I had better keep this one where a search _would_ find it, I suppose. Ozorne knows I hate it, but he also knows I have it, somewhere. He won't expect me to be carrying it, but ... he'll probably expect that I brought it. He liked to make me wear it."

\---------------------------------------

"Really? You had _two_ lightsabers with you and you tried to punch Ozorne, not stab him?" Daine asked. 

"You know I have never used either blade, why would you expect that to change when I reacted without thinking?"

\--------------------------------------

When the barrier between the realms fell, and Daine and Numair were sent on more and more missions to deal with Immortals, Jon mentioned the lightsabers at a meeting.

"Numair, I hate to ask you to carry them, but--" 

"You're worried they might be needed," Numair sighed. "I know, your majesty."

Back in Numair's rooms, Daine asked, "Would it help if I carried them?" She saw the look of concern on Numair's face. His issue carrying them was because he'd been a healer, and he's been the one to teach _her_ to heal. "I know I heal animals, but wild magic isn't the Gift. Can't make a lightsaber, no culture of avoiding them."

\-----------------------------------

In the end, they agreed it made the most sense for them to each carry one. (It would probably have made more sense for Numair to just make Daine her own lightsaber and attune it to her, but that would have required him to _make another lightsaber,_ which wasn't happening for a variety of reasons.) Numair kept the black bladed lightsaber and handed Daine the silver one. He didn't need to ask where she kept it: it was attuned to him, so he could always find where it was (He couldn't _go_ to it, like he could with a focus, but he could find it.)

\-----------------------------------

Daine considered using the silver lightsaber against the Skinners, but she didn't want to get close enough to find out if it would work or not. Nothing _else_ had.

\----------------------------------

Daine's bows were in the mortal realm, but the lightsabers, attuned to Numair, had passed between the realms when he did. When the tauros came, Daine grabbed both her towels and the lightsaber -- she'd rather not let the beast get into range when she'd never used a lightsaber before, only practicing with a sword, but if it got close enough, a lightsaber was a proper weapon. 

With some of her thoughts on the saber, Daine's last makeshift sling stone didn't kill the beast -- but the borrowed silver lightsaber did. She beheaded the tauros cleanly, cauterizing the wound as she made it.

\---------------------------------

Daine couldn't reach the borrowed silver lightsaber any better than her dagger, when she was caught in spidren webs. She knew because she tried. Numair still beat spidrens to death with his staff, rather than using the black bladed saber. It still wasn't a weapon he'd think of when he was, simply, reacting. 

\-------------------------------

Mouse manure," Daine replied, when Numair said it was simple to find her. "D'you think I've lived all this time with mages without knowing what it takes to find somebody and go to them?" She paused a moment. "Was it the lightsaber?"

Numair shook his head. "My attunement to it would tell me the direction, but that's all," he admitted. The next words were mumbled. "I had a focus."


End file.
